Thursday, May 12, 2005

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

So 35 games in, and the Mets season can easily be broken down into categories defined by the best of Sergio Leone's "Spaghetti western" trilogy starring Clint Eastwood--The Good, the Bad and The Ugly. So here's some quotes from the lead characters, and how they apply to the Mets in 2005:

The Good, which was Clint Eastwood's character, The Man With No Name (a-k-a Blondie):"Two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. We're gonna have to earn it."

That's right Mr. Eastwood -- well, except that Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran signed for much more money than that. But earn it they have. It's obvious to see that every time this team goes out when Martinez pitches, they feel that they're going to win. And the crowd at Shea is electric when he pitches--the dirty old stadium in Flushing feels like it's 2000 again when he racks up a strikeout. And Beltran is quietly putting together another great season, and it's quite possible he's even a better fielder than Mike Cameron.

Um, not so good Lee. You see, Kaz Matsui's batting is bad, even with new contact lenses. Every time he's up, the crowd at Shea is chomping at the bit to boo, just so their stomachs don't get totally filled with bile. Another 35 games like this and fans will be waiting to make sushi out of him.

The Ugly, which was Eli Wallach's character, Tuco: "You never had a rope around your neck. Well, I'm going to tell you something. When that rope starts to pull tight, you can feel the Devil bite your ass."

That's right Eli, the Devil is certainly on the asses of Tom Glavine and Victor Zambrano. For Glavine, if he doesn't turn it around soon, he could be looking at a one way ticket out of town. I wouldn't be surprised to see Omar Minaya find a team to take him on, with the Mets paying much of the rest of his contract. And Zambrano is just begging to be sent down to hell (a.k.a Triple A Norfolk) when Kaz Ishii comes back.

So there you are, the Mets in terms of one of the greatest Westerns ever. The Cards are coming to town--let's hope for at least one win.